Cotto turned down $13 million to fight Pacquiao

By Dan Ambrose: Miguel Cotto (37-3, 30 KO’s) recently turned down a whopping $13 million to fight Manny Pacquiao at a catchweight of 150 lbs, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. Instead of fighting Pacquiao for big money, Cotto will be taking on WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout for considerably less than that.

Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum told Rafael about the $13 million offer made to Cotto for the Pacquiao, and that was a guaranteed offer for their rematch. It was after Cotto said no to the rematch with Pacquiao that Arum then selected 39-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez to be the one to fight Pacquiao on December 8th.

It’s hard to imagine Cotto saying no to all that money because his fight with Trout will likely bring in a lot less than that. Cotto would have been able to fight Pacquiao at least 150, so it’s not as if he was being asked to melt down all the way to 147 to make the fight happen. That’s a lot of money for Cotto to be turning down, especially when he could very well lose to Trout and then find himself much less in demand. Cotto has already lost his last fight to Floyd Mayweather Jr., and if you add another loss to that with the Trout fight, Cotto might have problems selling his fights on pay per view in the future.

If Cotto gets past Trout, then there’s a possibility that Cotto could fight WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in a PPV unification bout early next year. That fight would do well on PPV, but definitely not as good as a Pacquiao-Cotto rematch. I’m surprised Cotto said no to that fight, because he’s never going to get Pacquiao to agree to come all the way up to 154 to fight him. He’s too small for that. Cotto should have taken that fight. With the way that Pacquiao has been showing signs of slipping lately, I think Cotto would have had a good chance of beating him in a rematch at 150 as long as Cotto did run out of gas.